Keep Your Enemies Closer
by keptein
Summary: Tony, fed up with the corruption in the superhero business, becomes a supervillain. SHIELD calls in Steve Rogers to fight him, which would be fine - if they didn't also ask Tony Stark to help as an engineering specialist. slash, Steve/Tony
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Dedicated to Linda, for being amazing. Thanks to wasagi for the beta help! This is my first Avengers fic, and the longest thing I've ever written, so I hope you like. :)

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Tony's not exactly supposed to be in New York. He has meetings and other important CEO stuff back in Malibu, but sometimes he just gets this craving for a proper New York bagel. He'd buy pizza, but New York pizza brings bad connotations at the moment.

The house in Malibu, open as it is, feels too much like a prison. It throws him off balance – hell, he still can't sit on his own fucking couch. Tony needs to get away, and a coast to coast flight in the suit helps with that.

The point is, Tony is in New York, but he's not supposed to be. Right now, he's also fighting Flame Brain, which he really isn't supposed to be. Well, he says fighting. It's more like Flame Brain is fighting him, and he is being fought.

This is not Tony's fault either, by the way – he didn't even know who Flame Brain was until as of two minutes ago. He'd just been flying over New York, minding his own business, when a semi-impressive show caught his eye in a back-alley below: a bald woman throwing flaming tennis balls at a couple of muggers, with an old lady clutching her purse in the background.

"JARVIS?"

_"I believe you're viewing Flame Brain, sir. Female, twenty-three years old, currently resides in New York. Powers include pyrokinesis, a resistance to fire and weak telekinesis. A superhero without any known affiliations."_

"Thanks."

_"You are very welcome, sir."_

He hangs around, because pyrokinesis makes him revert back to his twelve year old self, and is just leaving when he hears:

"Oi, lady." Flame Brain doesn't speak particularly loudly, but Tony hasn't invested billions into the suit for nothing. "How about some payment?" She grins, flexing her right arm and periodically engulfing it in flames. The old lady she'd just helped lets out a confused stutter. "Manual labor isn't cheap these days, at least not American born and bred," she continues. "And I had to beat up _two_ thugs for you. That deserves a reward, doesn't it?"

Tony might be in doubt of his own heart on a good day, but not even he lets threatening old ladies pass. "Hey," he shouts from overhead. "Are you serious?"

"Well, if it isn't Iron Man!" Flame Brain squints up at him, and Tony mentally high-fives himself for being somewhat well-known already, even if it is with an inaccurate moniker.

"Are you _seriously_ exploiting this poor old woman, right after defending her from someone who was doing the exact same thing?"

Flame Brain scowls. "I don't have to explain myself to you. It's not like this job pays much."

"Maybe not, but don't take it out of the people you're trying to _help_, Jesus." Tony was almost standing on the ground now, having gradually lowered during the conversation. "Ma'am? I think it'd be best if you left now." The old lady, still shaking slightly, nodded and hurried away.

Flame Brain looked at her leaving, then turned back to Tony. "I don't know who you think you are, but this isn't the west coast, so get lost. You think you scare me, with your flying and your crazy-ass suit of armor?"

"A bit, yeah."

Really, the ensuing fight is not his fault at all.

Flame Brain throws more of those tennis balls at him, which have a much higher density than he first assumed – it doesn't much matter, though, because the armor is pretty much undamaged. Flame Brain swears.

She throws other stuff at him too, but the armor _is_ nearly indestructible. He tries telling her that, to console her frustration with not affecting him, but it doesn't help. Her pyrokinesis must have some upper surface area limit, because she doesn't try to set the armor on fire – not that it'd work, anyway.

He might be a bit too gleeful about dodging or just absorbing the impact of the flaming objects she throws, with her mind or her hand, but it's not his fault he feels giddy – this is something completely different to fighting Stane, this is _fun_ and _easy_ and everything he thought superheroes did when he was a kid. Flame Brain grows more and more frustrated with him – he lands on the ground in a flash, kneeling to aim his repulsors at her feet. She curses loudly and stumbles, and Tony grins to himself, hidden behind the helmet. He knew that fire resistance theoretically shouldn't hinder the repulsors, but it was nice to see it confirmed.

Flame Brain throws her arms out in a very dramatic gesture, and the minor details lying around, like beer bottles and garbage lids, start rattling and levitating.

Tony looks around in mild disinterest, then almost takes a step back as all the objects burst into flame. Flame Brain pants, flexing her fingers. The objects start vibrating. Tony wants to spare her the embarrassment of powering up only for it to fail terribly, so he picks up one of the garbage cans – now lidless – and throws it at her, and all the objects drop again as she raises her hands in front of her to shield herself.

"Really," Tony says. Flame Brain is still panting, and she looks _seething_. It's not a good look on her. "You should either stop blackmailing old ladies or stop being a superhero, this is embarrassing. Actually, here's a tip, Hero 101 for someone of your caliber: team up with someone. If I'd been a bad guy I'd have killed you in two seconds flat."

"Why do you even care so much?" she asks, teeth gritted. "Last anybody heard, you were in Gulmira."

Tony stops. He doesn't say, _because for once in my life I want to take pride in something truly honorable, and you are ruining it_."Why are you bald?" he asks instead, and wobbles a bit – seems like Flame Brain did manage to damage one of the flight stabilizers after all. She doesn't answer, instead chooses to spit at him and turn her back, but JARVIS tells him anyway. _"Her skin is flame resistant, sir,"_ the AI tactfully comments. _"Her hair is not."_

"Okay," Tony says, and flies off.

It's not like he doesn't know that superheroes are people too, that they can be greedy and small-minded and condescending, but the encounter with Flame Brain still rattles him more than he'd admit if he were sober. And it's stupid and almost disgustingly naïve to think that all superheroes act by some universal code, he _knows_ that, but such definite proof to the contrary revealed that some subconscious part of him does think that – did think that.

Ripping away his beliefs seems to be a trend in Tony's life lately.

Tony's problem now, besides the fact that his vodka seems to be disappearing alarmingly fast, is that he can't define the difference between a superhero and a supervillain. A superhero is one who works for the good of the people, he thinks, and remembers old film reels with Captain America's earnest face. But what's Flame Brain, then? Do her actions regarding the old lady negate all the good actions she's done in the past?

Everything about this makes Tony's head hurt. He needs another drink.

After Flame Brain and the philosophical night that wasn't, Tony has JARVIS set up some basic search parameters for corrupt superhero activity nationwide.

It's horribly vague, as it isn't exactly something you can just set a Google Alert for, so Tony leaves it running in the background and then promptly forgets about it.

Until JARVIS one day reminds him.

_"Sir,"_ JARVIS says. Tony's typing, making adjustments to the system code – he'd found some minor bugs earlier. Artificial intelligence means the system should be able to spot and fix these things itself, but this seems like a blind spot.

"Yes, dear?" he says absently, completely focused on the screen in front of him.

_"The 'corrupt superhero watch list' is displaying a red flag, sir."_

"The—really?" Tony stops typing and moves over to another screen, code forgotten. "Give me the feed." He leans forward, reading, then actually chortles. "Oh my God, those _idiots._"

Tony's back in New York. He actually cleared it with Pepper, this time – she thinks he's looking at real estate, and there was way too much pity on her face when she agreed to clear his schedule for today.

Dart and Racquet are meeting Lightning Lad on a rooftop. Tony's amused by pretty much everything about this, but a top secret meeting on a rooftop in New York has to be one of his favorite parts. It's like they don't know _anything_.

The armor's not very silent, but the three have already devolved into a shouting match by the time he gets here, so nobody seems to notice until he's hovering right by the edge of the rooftop.

"Hey, guys," he says, killing the boot thrusters and walking onto the rooftop. Dart, Racquet and Lightning Lad stop squabbling to look over at him – Dart and Racquet immediately assume more defensive positions, while Lightning Lad just looks confused.

"What are you doing here?" Dart hisses. Tony looks at him. He's tall and sleek, but the four awkward fins sticking out like a deformed skirt destroy anything he might have had going for him – except for how committed he is to his supervillain name.

"Oh, just dropping by," Tony says. "You know, seeing how the old scheme is coming along. Seriously, guys? The _Helicarrier?_" Lightning Lad finally seems to move into action, having caught on. "Nice to see you, Lightning Lad."

"It's _Dynamotron_," Lightning Lad says, angry – and sure enough, there's a gigantic D on his chest. Tony raises his eyebrows.

"Is that your dark side identity, or what? Last time I recall, you were helping out in thunderstorms and the like."

Lightning Lad chokes on air. "That was _five_ _years ago_," he says, like Tony should be completely caught up on what all superheroes are doing at all times. Tony shrugs, but it doesn't translate well in the armor.

"Whatever."

"Iron Man," Racquet says. It's the first time she's spoken so far. Tony looks at her, at her fairly conventional spandex suit with green and black stripes. "What do you know?"

"I know that you're planning on infiltrating the Helicarrier ... somehow? You know that's SHIELD's best and brightest, right? I almost want to see you try, just because of how miserably you'll fail."

Lightning Lad visibly bristles. Dart does too, but Racquet stays calm – she seems to be the most level-headed of the three. "We can't let you leave, then," she says, and nods to Lightning Lad – he returns her look for a second, before moving. Tony can practically see the _oh, right, _as it crosses his mind.

Lightning Lad makes a fist, punching the air towards Tony. At first he thinks nothing's happened, and it's when he tries to get a few meters of leverage he realizes his left boot thruster isn't working.

He's grounded. Shit. Lightning Lad seems to have short-circuited his boot, but he can still move it – and right now, Tony's really grateful for his paranoia, because giving each limb its own circuit stopped Lightning Lad from rendering the entire armor ineffective at once.

He raises hands palm-up towards Lightning Lad, sending two repulsor blasts his way, and singing some of the youth's hair as he stumbles backward. Dart and Racquet join in on the action. He starts running circles around Tony, presumably looking for a weak spot – it doesn't matter, because there are none. Racquet is more trouble – she dodges his repulsor blast and wraps a hand around his wrist, the metal making some ominous noise as her biceps bulge. Well, shit, Tony knew she was strong, but he didn't know she was _that_ strong – he punches her in the stomach, causing her to double over and release his wrist. He rotates the joint, but it still works, even if the armor now has some slightly intimidating marks.

Dart is like a mosquito buzzing by your ear – relatively harmless, but really fucking annoying. Tony tries punching him, blasting him, everything, but he dodges and delivers his own punches – which bruises his knuckles more than it does Tony. Lightning Lad is back in the game, too, and he's the real threat. Tony's chest and upper leg flight stabilizers still move, which increases his over-all mobility strength, and helps him dodge Lightning Lad's vibes.

Racquet, since recovered, tries to kick Tony, but manages to hit Dart, who's still spinning around them. Dart falls to the ground with a yowl of pain, and Racquet curses loudly, apologizing as she falls to her knees beside him. Lightning Lad and Tony both stop to stare at them for a second, but Tony's the quickest to re-engage, and he hears a sickening crunch as he breaks Lightning Lad's left arm. Tony winces. He's still getting used to the armor's strength translating from his own, and now he feels almost bad for the kid.

Dart is still on the ground, but Racquet's up and moving again. Tony's caught between her and Lightning Lad, who looks downright furious now, with his left arm cradled along his side and the other stretched towards Tony. He seems to be gearing up at for something big, and Tony ducks at the last minute. The vibe hits Racquet behind him, but seems to do no harm. Tony takes a second to marvel at the specificity of Lightning Lad's powers, but reconsiders when he thinks about how it would be to be virtually powerless against all foes not wearing a giant technological suit of armor.

He throws himself to the side to avoid another one of Racquet's kicks, using Dart as a landing pillow. Dart moans in pain, and rolls over on his side – hopefully not to die. Tony is a bit busy not dying himself to notice. He stands up, but Racquet crouches and grabs his ankle, throwing him almost across the rooftop. It's obvious Racquet has had no proper training, which is probably saving Tony's life right now – it's not like he has any, either.

Tony staggers to his feet. The ankle Racquet grabbed is kind of wobbly, and it makes him wince. "Why am I out of missiles?" he complains to JARVIS. "Missiles would've solved everything right now. This would've been over before it had even started, if I had missiles."

JARVIS, clever enough to realize that Tony's being rhetorical, stays silent.

Racquet starts running towards him, and Tony has just enough time to raise his palms and think that _man, being kicked from a rooftop wearing the most advanced armor in the world would be a ridiculous way to die,_ before she's on him. Tony turns full power on his repulsors and hopes for the best.

Luckily, Tony seems to have some kind of magical force on his side – his repulsors catch Racquet in the chest, and she's pushed backwards. He punches her over the head, and she's on the ground, out for the count.

Lightning Lad is the only one left now. He's moved closer, and Tony meets him in the middle of the roof – it probably isn't a good idea to approach the guy who can take his armor out of commission, but it's not like Tony can do much from a range without those damn _missiles_. Lightning Lad seems tired. He's sweaty and panting, with his arm still against his side. Tony really doesn't want to hurt him more, so he tries to do what he does best: talk his way out of it.

"Why?" he asks.

Lightning Lad frowns, his murderous expression somewhat mollified. "Why what?"

"Why team up with—" Tony waves a hand at Dart and Racquet, "these guys? They're supervillains, and they're not even respectable ones. I mean, just _look_ at Dart's outfit."

"I want to be remembered," Lightning Lad says. "I want to put my mark on New York, on the _world_. Nobody notices me, you know that? This town is so fucking full of superheroes that nobody gives two shits about the small-fry."

Tony seems to have lucked out on this one, Lightning Lad looks like he's gearing up for a monolog.

"I'm _twenty four_, and people still call me Lightning Lad, even though I wanted to be known as Dynamotron from the start," he continues. "You said it yourself, I'm known for helping out in _thunderstorms!_"

"Helping out in thunderstorms is perfectly honorable," Tony tries. "Besides, not everybody is destined to be a hero."

"I know," Lightning Lad says, and his face is dark. "So I decided to take down SHIELD."

"Take down— are you kidding me? With _these_ assholes? You'd be better off just trying by yourselves, or did you miss when Racquet kicked Dart so he almost died?"

Dart wheezes somewhere on the roof.

"I have to _try_," Lightning Lad insists. "You don't understand, you popped into existence a few months ago, and you're already famous— I've been trying for years, and nobody even seems to care!"

"Being a superhero is not about being noticed," Tony says. The words feel hollow. "It's about helping others."

"I _know_ that!" Lightning Lad looks almost like he's about to cry. He doesn't look twenty four, not at all, and Tony catches himself wondering if this one is an orphan too – they're disturbingly over-represented in the superhero community. "You don't understand," Lightning Lad finishes miserably. "Just… leave me alone. Go."

"Will you try to infiltrate the Helicarrier and – quite possibly – die in the process?" Tony asks, because he feels like he has to.

"No," Lightning Lad snaps. "Fuck off."

Tony does. It's an awkward trip home without the boot thrusters working. Maybe some real estate in New York would be a good idea after all, a place to keep a secondary armor and a nice bed.

It isn't often Tony shows up for the office without Pepper nagging at him, so he's surprised when she interrupts his reluctant signing of paperwork to slam a newspaper down on his desk.

"Tony," she says, "what is this?"

"What's what," he asks, and pulls at the paper until Pepper removes her hand from on top of it.

_IRON MAN: NEW YORK'S NEWEST TERROR?_

_Iron Man was seen last week doing battle against New York's own Lightning Lad. Who is this newcomer, and why is he attacking New York's finest? Has this rising superhero switched sides? (…) Our reporter Zena Johnson caught an interview with Flame Brain, who also says she has fought Iron Man. "He probably wouldn't label himself a supervillain, but he is one," she says. "He seems to have some really weird notions on the superbusiness in general."_

"Well," Tony says, after reading the article twice. "I think I lost a few brain cells just reading that. Come on, Pepper, bad press isn't exactly news to us – and there's nothing tying Iron Man to Stark Enterprises, so it's fine. Besides, it's just the Super Scope. Nobody reads the Super Scope."

It's not just the Super Scope. Whatever media goodwill Iron Man has gotten over the last few months is backlashing now, and the way they're tearing into him is vicious. It's nothing Tony hasn't experienced before, but Iron Man is supposed to be separate from all that – he's supposed to be something more than petty bickering between tabloids.

It makes Tony sick, to see the superhero community like this. Howard was pretty much guaranteed to raise a Captain America fanboy, but superheroes faded to his periphery as he got older, and he had no idea everything was so messed up. There are still good people, there has to be, but they seem buried under this shit, deceit and gossip and conspiracy and corruption.

_Fuck it_, Tony thinks. If they want a supervillain, then he'll give them a supervillain.

The first thing he does it burn down the Super Scope. He waits until the building's emptied out, but doesn't bother trying to mask it being Iron Man's work – this was what they wanted, after all.

He knows, as he's emptying a can of gasoline over a desk, that this is probably the least rational, most childish response imaginable. So fucking what? He's Tony Stark, he's the _king_ of irrationality.

Second, he crashes a concert. It's really more for himself than for the media, but it's one hell of a publicity stunt either way. Being a supervillain, honestly, is kind of relieving. Tony does whatever the fuck he wants, and it's _amazing_ – nobody seems to appreciate how much effort he puts into keeping himself in line. Pepper would disagree, but she's started walking around with a hazy look on her face after Iron Man – arguably – became a ticking PR bomb. Tony can respect that, so he actually makes an effort to meet on time to board meetings – but it will take more than Pepper being worried to make him pretend to be interested.

Anyway, the concert. Tony actually thinks it kind of ingenious, the software he wrote that allows him to hijack the speakers and play AC/DC – _proper_ music, not whatever garbage this band tries to pass off as rock – upon his arrival. He'll have to remember it for the future.

Tony lands on the stage, and grabs the microphone from the gob smacked singer. The band stands behind him, shocked into inaction – Canadians, Tony scoffs internally. They'd probably just apologize to him if they could get anything out. The crowd splits into three: the ones who are screaming, the ones who are cheering confusedly, and the ones who just stand there, staring.

"Hey," Tony says. He doesn't really need the microphone to project his voice, could just link the armor to the stereo, but he likes the showmanship of it. The AC/DC quiets down as he speaks. "I don't have much to say to you all, except that your taste in music is bad, and you should feel bad." Tony gives the microphone back to the vocalist. The speakers on stage blow out as he jets upwards and into the skies.

Tony grins. Being a supervillain is _awesome_.

And if he has a tail on his way back to Malibu, well, he loses them before ever reaching Oklahoma anyway.

Even Tony thinks it's a dumb move to attack SHIELD. He remembers Lightning Lad, how he teamed up with two supervillains to somehow coup the Helicarrier. Tony remembers saying it was an incredibly stupid decision, which makes what he's about to do not a little ironic – but not very surprising, either. Pepper would have a heart attack if she knew, but the anomaly Tony found in the SHIELD database needs to be checked out.

The SHIELD base is small, not far from Albany. Still, Tony doesn't want to alert the entire fucking thing, so he has to touch ground a few miles out and then walk the rest of the way. The suit is _awful_ to walk in at length, he'll have to do something about that – it chafes in really uncomfortable places.

JARVIS tells him of the two guards by the door before he can see them, and two sedatives launch from the armor's shoulders before they manage to raise the alarm.

A key card from one of them, and a borrowed finger, opens the base doors. The building is non-descript, and surprisingly subtle against the landscape, but the hi-tech doors glide away to reveal a very shiny floors and classy paintings hanging on white walls. Well, classy by Tony's definition, anyway – they could be from IKEA for all he knew. Or maybe they were from Pollock's winter period.

There are three more agents who spot him as he walks in. The armor isn't exactly very stealthy, but Tony doesn't know if he can do anything about that, or if it's just a bi-product of _being incased in metal_ – he has a sedative for each agent, anyway.

The fourth, he asks before he sedates. "Where is Lund and Mahoney?" Tony asks, gripping the front of the agent's uniform.

The agent stutters. "I—don't succumb to pressure," he replies, in what is quite possibly the least convincing voice ever.

"You can repeat that," Tony says amicably, "and I can break your fingers, or you can tell me where Lund and Mahoney is." He wouldn't, but this guy doesn't know that. Besides, Tony has a reputation now – whatever the agent is imagining is probably worse than anything Tony can think of. "I mean, I'm going to find out _anyway_."

"Their offices are 203 and 204," the agent chokes out. Yeah, this one won't make it far on the SHIELD ladder – Tony hopes this experience will make him understand that.

"Great, thanks," Tony says, and sedates him for good measure.

Walking up stairs in the armor is not very fun, either, especially when he meets three more agents going up. "JARVIS," Tony says, and the armor sends out two more sedatives, which – shit. "Why'd I only bring six sedatives?" Tony asks, as the last agent standing seems to be going through some minor shock phase. Tony's trying to figure out how to knock him out without hurting him – at least without giving the poor man a major concussion.

In lieu of a reply, JARVIS plays him an audio clip of himself saying, "_Six is fine. Six is plenty, come on, it's _Iron Man_ – I'll just knock the rest out." _Tony sighs. "I really need to start planning these things better." JARVIS makes a noise of assent, like the snarky Brit he is.

The agent's gearing up for a fight now, which is really not good. Tony tries whacking him over the ear, but while it certainly seems to hurt, it doesn't make him pass out.

"Is there anything I can say that will make you go away quietly?" Tony asks, in vain. The agent doesn't even seem to have heard him, and punches the armor again. Tony doesn't understand why people think that's a good idea – the armor is made of a _gold-titanium alloy_, it's not going to fold under a regular punch.

Tony diverts the agent's attention by doing some serious damage to the wall next to him, and punches the agent neatly in the head. A tiny bit harder than needed, maybe, but the guy was annoying.

Lund and Mahoney are easy to find, luckily. They're even together, chatting in Lund's office – Tony's not surprised. They seem really, really stupid, even for HYDRA double agents.

Tony closes the door after he enters. Lund already has his gun out, and the sound of bullets hitting the armor still makes Tony wince, even though he had it reinforced for that exact purpose. "I just want to talk, guys," Tony says, and repulsor blasts them both. Lund flinches backwards, and falls over his own desk. Mahoney, swearing, backs into a filing cabinet. "How are you contacting HYDRA?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," Lund wheezes, from behind his desk. Tony ignores him, and grabs Mahoney by the throat, lifting him up a bit so he has to stand on his toes to keep the pressure off his air pipe.

"How are you contacting HYDRA," he repeats. The armor's voice is perfect for this – that dead, robotic, slightly unsettling quality seems to drive the point home to Mahoney.

"Meet-up," Mahoney hisses, and Tony lets up a little. Not too much, though, when it seems like Mahoney won't continue. "In Albany, bi-weekly."

Tony waits.

"By the Palace Theatre," Mahoney finally admits. By then Lund's come to his senses and presumably alerted the rest of SHIELD, and he tries to shoot Tony _again_. Absolutely hopeless, these guys. Tony throws Mahoney at Lund and blasts his repulsors at them both, damaging both them and Lund's computer, before taking off directly through the roof. Subtlety doesn't matter now.

"Tony?" Pepper stands by the door to the workshop, looking vaguely concerned. Tony's more interested by the sandwich she has in her hands, and he makes some very mature grabby hands as she comes closer and hands it to him. "Listen, I know you've been looking at real estate, and I was wondering whether you'd like me to buy your parents' mansion back?"

Tony actually chokes a bit on the sandwich, and makes some violent noises. Pepper, eyes widening, backtracks a bit. "I mean, I didn't mean to pry, but people have different ways of coping, and maybe some familiar surroundings will help—"

"Stop talking," Tony says, after swallowing the rebellious bit of sandwich. "Is this you encouraging Iron Man? I think this is you encouraging Iron Man."

"I'm not encouraging him, Tony—"

"JARVIS, a quick summary of Iron Man's latest adventures?"

_"Iron Man was last seen attacking a SHIELD base, sir,"_ the AI says tactfully.

Pepper's words stutter to a stop, and her eyes widen. "Oh my _God,_ Tony, a _SHIELD base?_"

Tony doesn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't how Pepper looks right now. She looks afraid, and he's not sure whether it's of him or for him, but neither is good. "No, I mean, yeah, but it was small, I was infiltrating, JARVIS forgot to mention that I was being a _good guy_, JARVIS, damn it—" Tony stands up to grab her hands. "There were some double agents there that I needed to talk to. I didn't hurt anyone." Not chronically, anyway, he added mentally. She looks a bit calmer now, but with a growing question in her eyes.

"Double agents? For who?"

"HYDRA," Tony says. "I, uh, might've hacked into their server. Or something to that effect."

She looks admonishing now, which means things are back to normal. "_Tony_—"

"_Pepper_," he mimics. "Don't sweat it, seriously, I've got it under control. And maybe this way I'll even get my very own _nemesis_, you can't be a supervillain without a nemesis." She's fighting a smile now, which means that he's won. "I know what I'm doing. If I don't, you can have the company and it'll be Potts Enterprises, and— now I've gone and given you ideas, I can tell. The Potts phone? Sounds bathroom related, you'd need to figure out something else."

"I'm leaving now," Pepper says, and takes her hands out of his.

"Okay, but don't go off starting your own company now, just because I gave you the idea," Tony shouts after her.

She stops at the door to look back at him. "How on Earth would I be able to do that, I'm already running this one! And doing a better job than anyone else in this room."

"Harsh, Pep," he says, but he's grinning, and she's smiling back.

"Goodbye, Tony."

Nick Fury stands in front of a meeting table. A flat screen TV is dominating the wall behind him. By the table, three agents sit: Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanov.

"Last week," Fury begins, "a SHIELD base just outside Albany, New York was attacked by the supervillain known as Iron Man." The flat screen turns on, and grainy surveillance video shows Iron Man taking out three agents in quick succession on a stair case. "Iron Man has been reported active for six months now. He started out as a vigilante superhero – we have reports of him attacking a terrorist cell in Gulmira, Afghanistan. Then he started attacking superheroes, like Flame Brain and Lightning Lad." Pictures from the fights are now shown as a slideshow on the flat screen. "We have not as of yet identified the trigger that made him switch sides. When he attacked the SHIELD base, all but two agents were left unharmed: Carl Lund and Robert Mahoney." Fury looks at his agents. "Two hours after the attack, SHIELD received this audio clip." He gestures for the clip to start playing, and the voices come through clear and loud, contrasting with the earlier grainy footage.

_"How are you contacting HYDRA?"_

_"Meet-up, in Albany, bi-weekly. By the Palace Theatre."_

Clint and Natasha exchange a look. "Amateurs," he says, and she smiles.

Fury looks unimpressed. "Exactly. It's downright embarrassing that an outside source caught this before us, and we're triple-checking everything now." He nods to Coulson, who's standing by the door. Coulson nods back.

"An outside source, sir?" Steve asks.

"We're assuming the sender either is, or is connected to, Iron Man. Along with the audio clip, we also received documents proving that Lund and Mahoney have been leaking information to HYDRA. You three are here because we're sending you after Iron Man."

"Sir," Steve says, but Fury quiets him with a look.

"We're reinstating Lund and Mahoney as soon as they're out of medical," he says. "At the moment, HYDRA doesn't know that we know, and we intend to keep it that way. Which is _why_," Fury sends Steve a pointed glare, and he finally settles, "we need to respond in some way. This will be a nice way for you to get used to thinking as a team, too."

The three agents nod.

"That's all," Fury says. "Get ready, Iron Man has been sighted in New York."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Second chapter. Third and last will be up soon!

* * *

The bank accountants quiver behind their desks. Tony's already tried telling them to calm down, but it didn't seem to have any effect. They've already given him the little money they had available – it's not like he needs it, anyway, this whole thing is just to see what SHIELD's coughed up. He looks out the glass door, or what used to be a glass door before he entered, but there's still no sign of anyone. He's legitimately worried about some second-rate superhero showing up, because beating them honestly makes him feel like a bit of a bully. Finally, though, he hears a shout from outside. "Iron Man!"

Tony steps out of the bank, and is supremely delighted by who it is that's expecting him. "Well, if it isn't the star spangled man himself! And two of SHIELD's finest, I'm impressed. Are you my appointed nemeses, then?"

"Let the hostages go," Captain America shouts. Romanov and Barton stand to his left, which looks wrong, but Tony can't immediately pinpoint why. The market place that usually stands at this spot is gone, leaving a wide, empty space, dotted in a few places with small statues.

"Would if I could, Cap," Tony says, and shrugs his shoulders. It _still_ doesn't translate well in the armor. "Except I don't want to, but hey. Didn't you guys come here to fight?"

"If you won't let them go without one, I suppose we did," Captain America says. Holy shit, _Captain America_. Tony knew they'd found him, remembers reading the SHIELD reports and immediately drinking the rest of the day away, but he didn't think he'd _meet him_. And Cap's going to be Tony's _nemesis_, wow.

An arrow flies through the air and lands in the middle of Tony's chest, a suction cup keeping it in place. Tony has just enough time to look down at it and think _huh,_ before it explodes.

He rocks a bit backwards, and activates his boot thrusters. He swoops over all three, a steady stream of repulsor energy raining down on them – Barton and Romanov both dodge it, the former a little slower, but Cap just raises his shield to guard himself. The energy bounces off the vibranium, and Tony has to spin to the side to avoid it hitting him in the chest.

He has missiles, this time, but still just six – there's only so much room in the suit when he's in it too. He sends two after Barton, who somehow seems to hit them with his arrows and cause them to explode when they're still a safe distance away. Tony sends a couple after Cap too, and he's taken by surprise when his boot suddenly seems to gain weight – Romanov has jumped up from a statue to grab hold of it, and is now trying to clamber up his armor. He's deeply impressed, because the armor doesn't exactly come with handles for that sort of thing. She hugs herself tightly against his front.

"Whoa, lady," Tony says. "First of all, this seems really inappropriate, and I don't want to hurt you, so—" he's interrupted by Romanov taking out a knife and _stabbing at his eyes_. The glass cracks a bit, and Tony swears. He starts powering up the chest repulsor, which Romanov seems to hear – she drops from him and lands on the ground, a bit awkwardly.

"Are you _insane?"_ Tony asks her, as she's dodging his repulsor blasts.

"Worth a try," she replies.

Barton keeps up a steady stream of the explosive arrows – they don't do much except slightly alter Tony's flight, until JARVIS says, _"Right shin flight stabilizer damaged, sir."_

"Well, shit," Tony says, because Barton seems to have figured it out now, and Romanov's bullets aren't far off either.

Cap's shield hits him in the chest – luckily, Cap's angling seems to have been a bit off, so Tony doesn't have to absorb the entire impact of it. It's certainly an impressive piece of work, Cap's shield, and Tony itches to study it in his lab, wonders at what information he could glean from it.

_"Lower back flight stabilizer damaged, sir,"_ JARVIS says, and Tony's forced to land. Romanov starts running towards him as soon as he's not airborne, so he sends his last two missiles after her. She dodges the one, and it's not smart enough to reverse before it hits a statue, but the other hits her in the side, and she has to stop momentarily. She's still favoring one ankle after the earlier fall, although Tony wouldn't have noticed if JARVIS didn't start analyzing for fractures.

Barton is maintaining his distance, but now that he's on the ground, Tony's flight stabilizers have retracted. An arrow lands over his eye, the same one Romanov cracked earlier, but Tony rips it off and throws it up in the air, blasting it so it explodes harmlessly over their heads.

Romanov is back on her way now, and Cap's approaching from another side. She has Barton behind her, but seems to effortlessly know how to dodge so his arrows fly past her. Cap punches Tony over the jaw, and Tony's neck bends at an awkward angle – the suit's movement range doesn't really allow for it, which makes it hurt on top of Cap's already impressive force. Romanov tries stabbing him in eye again, but he grabs her wrist and throws her at Cap – the effect is less than he'd hoped for, as she finds her balance almost immediately, and Cap remains standing.

Now is when they should team up, but they don't – Cap seems determined to basically punch every inch of Tony, which is getting harder and harder to dodge, and Romanov tries shooting him at close range.

Tony gets his palms up and repulsor blasts them both just as Barton is firing another one of his arrows – they're too stupefied to dodge, and the arrow attaches to Romanov's shoulder. Cap manages to snap it off and throw it away, but they're still caught in the minor explosion, and Romanov is pushed down on the ground, where she lies panting. Cap is still standing, but Tony punches him and runs towards Barton, who puts down his bow and adopts a defensive stance – like that'll do any good. Tony grabs him and throws him backwards, at Cap. He continues running, and jets up into the air. What self-repair the stabilizers can do is done, and it'll just have to last until he gets to a safe spot. Real estate in New York would be a really good idea, actually.

"Impressive," Tony states dryly, looking down at the three who are getting to their feet. "If you're SHIELD's most competent, I weep for humanity." Satisfied to have the last word, he flies away. It's not like he needed the money in the bank.

Fury is disappointed, and he has no qualms about saying so. Loudly. And repeatedly.

"What was that?" he asks. "That was embarrassing. _Thoroughly _embarrassing. For everybody but Iron Man, who left smug like the cat that got the cream. Luckily he seemed uninterested in the bank or the hostages, but we can't expect a repeat performance of that. We're working off the theory that Iron Man is non-hostile, or at least on our side, but that could change at any moment. So I'm waiting for you to tell me that you went easy on him, and that there was a reason you appeared like bumbling idiots?"

Steve, Natasha and Clint all stay silent.

Fury sighs. "Alright. I sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to this, but it seems like we have no other choice. We're calling in a consultant to help incapacitate Iron Man, should the need arise. Tony Stark has offered his engineering expertise."

"Stark?" Steve repeats the name, a hopeful light in his eyes. Fury nods.

"Howard Stark's son."

Steve sits back, with a pleasantly surprised expression – Clint, however, is grimacing. "Stark, sir? Do we have to?" Natasha is quiet, but she doesn't look particularly pleased either.

Fury looks grim. "Yes."

"Tony?" Pepper's voice is dangerous. "Why is there a meeting at three that I didn't plan in your calendar? And why is it at the _Helicarrier_?"

Tony grins. "Given SHIELD's inability to deal with Iron Man, I kindly offered my services."

Pepper looks like she would be cringing if she were a lesser person.

"I also pointed out that I was the best of the best," Tony cheerfully continues. "I mean, they'd be _incredibly_ stupid not to let me help."

Pepper's morose face puts a damper on his mood, though. "You're playing with fire," she says. "I know I can't say anything to dissuade you, but this is going to backfire on you, Tony, and it's going to backfire _bad_. And if you destroy this company in the process…"

"Calm down, Pepper. Besides, what was I supposed to do, just stand aside and let some MIT moron try to reverse-engineer my tech?"

"Yes!" Pepper's vehement agreement stops Tony in his tracks. She sighs. "If this comes out, that you're Iron Man – that drop when we stopped weapons manufacturing will be _nothing_. It will be the end, do you hear me? There's no going back from this."

"I know, Pep," Tony says. He tries to grab her hands, like he usually does when he's being serious, but she wrenches them away. "This was I can control exactly how the process against Iron Man is going. It's the best decision, trust me. You trust me, don't you?"

Pepper just looks at him, and doesn't say anything at all.

Since he can't exactly fly the suit up to the Helicarrier, and they won't let him come with one of his own planes, Tony has to take the transport SHIELD offers to the Helicarrier. It's uncomfortable and the helicopter smells like Cheetos, and it has the unfortunate side-effect of making Tony almost on time, even though he loiters on the way to the meeting room.

When he finally does enter, it's to Fury standing in front of a plasma screen – Tony scoffs internally – explaining something to the three agents sitting around the table in front of him: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton. Coulson is standing off to the side, like an overseer of doom.

"Stark," Fury says, and his perpetually unimpressed expression flickers to show a bit of surprise. Good. If Tony can't be late, then he can at least be unpredictable.

"That's me," Tony says. He goes up to stand next to Fury. Rogers immediately goes to shake his hand.  
"Steve Rogers," he says, like Tony doesn't already know. "I knew your father."

And Tony – Tony knows that too, has heard all about Howard's adventures with the great Steve Rogers, but hearing it from the man himself feels different.

Tony smiles tightly, but Rogers isn't done. "You look just like him," he says, and Tony finally lets go of his hand.

"So I hear." Rogers's open smile turns a bit confused at the animosity in Tony's voice, and Fury decides to step in.

"These are agents Natasha Romanov and Clint Barton," he says, and Tony gives Romanov a smirk. She looks at him without emotion, and he quickly moves on to Barton – he suddenly felt like she was going to try to stab him in the eye again. Barton isn't exactly friendly either, but he at least nods back. "Now, what can you tell us about the Iron Man armor, Stark?"

"It depends," Tony says, and brings up his phone from his pocket. The plasma screen turns on. "Do you want the Simple English or the _really_ Simple English version?"

Fury is not amused. Tony gives him a smile. "Don't worry, Nick, it's nothing to be ashamed of – even I'm almost in awe of the tech that's on display here." On the plasma screen behind him, a composed image of the armor is shown, along with probable stats on the side. Tony goes through the rudimentary first, then starts theorizing on how it works and how it's powered – completely wrong, of course – but his eyes don't meet Rogers's, and his chest feels weirdly tight.

So Captain America's kind of a dick. It's not Tony's problem.

Rogers comes up to him after the meeting – Tony needs a SHIELD escort back to New York too, and can't just leave immediately, like he desperately wants to.

"I wanted to apologize," Rogers says, in a tone of voice Tony knows well – it says _I have no idea what I did wrong, but I'm going to fix it anyway_. Tony feels betrayed, and he bats away Rogers's offered hand.

"Don't worry about it," he says, and wishes he were a telepath, to broadcast his want for Rogers to _go away_ more clearly.

"Howard was a good man," Rogers says, and oh _God_, Tony didn't sign up for this, fuck waiting for the escort, he could just jump from the Helicarrier unprotected and it would be better than this. "You shouldn't be offended to be compared to him."

"Yeah, well, the guy you knew and the guy who failed to raise me seems to be pretty different people," Tony snaps. "Don't you have some kittens to rescue?"

Rogers is frowning now. Good, Tony thinks, and leaves as quickly as his overpriced shoes will let him when Rogers opens his mouth again.

Anyone with a self-respecting bone in their body would avoid Tony after that. Tony doesn't even give Rogers a choice – they have several meetings about Iron Man, and Tony takes care to arrive late and leave early.

After a while, though, he lets up a bit – he and Clint are in the process of establishing a friendship based purely upon insults, while Natasha is still ignoring him. Letting up proves to be a mistake, however, as Rogers approaches him after the very first meeting he doesn't bolt from.

"Hi," Rogers says – completely at odds with the way he argued with Tony over strategies in the meeting.

Tony gives a non-committal grunt and tries his best to look busy – which isn't that hard, considering he's holding his phone in one hand and shitty SHIELD coffee in the other. What's with that, anyway – Tony is _sure_ he designed this place with better coffee makers, on the off chance he might visit. He wouldn't be surprised if the soul-sucking bureaucracy affected the coffee beans, though.

Despite Tony's best efforts, Rogers doesn't go away – instead, he gives Tony an uncertain smile. "Do you want to go for lunch?" he asks.

Tony spits out the swallow he was about to take. "Are you on _drugs_?"

Rogers is starting to look offended now, which is much more reassuring in its familiarity. "I just want to get to know you," he says. Tony raises his eyebrows.

"You want to use me as a replacement for Howard," he states flatly, and tries to immerse himself in his phone.

"What? No! I—" Rogers actually chuckles, and Tony hates him a little, "look, I don't deny that you remind me of him, but you're different – _very_ different – in the ways that matter."

Tony is unconvinced, and it must show on his face, because Rogers gets a frustrated line between his eyebrows.

"You're more… real than he was," Rogers says, which is funny, because Tony is the fakiest faker ever to have faked.

"Okay," Tony says abruptly, and sets his coffee cup down. "Just—stop talking right now, I'll go to lunch with you, just, Jesus—" _don't mention Howard, and don't try to psychoanalyze me_, he doesn't say, but Rogers seems to get it anyway.

The lunch date actually doesn't go as horrible as expected, save for the SHIELD cafeteria food Tony has to suffer through – turns out Captain America can be funny as hell, even though he looked regularly overwhelmed by Tony's everything. It's nothing Tony hasn't experienced before. Steve – he's Steve now, one semi-successful lunch lets Tony call Captain America _Steve_ – just looks on with a helpless smile as Tony takes his SHIELD issue phone apart right there in the cafeteria, clucking his tongue in dismay at the inadequacies of the components.

"I'll get you something better," he promises Steve, "something that _should_ represent this age's technology, instead of something that does." He does give the phone back, rebuilt and better than new, but only at Steve's insistence and the permission to give him a better one.

Tony eventually gives the rest of his depressing sandwich to Steve, who eats it without hesitation, having already eaten the impressive amount of food he bought. Tony wonders at where it goes, then checks out Steve again – he's not a _robot_, after all, even if he surrounds himself with them. Never mind, he knows where it goes.

It's not a spoken agreement, that they grab lunch when they both have the time, after meetings and briefings about Iron Man and the Avengers' on-going struggle. It still happens, though, and it's fun, even though Steve is _painfully _earnest at times, and he views the world too naively for Tony's taste – a weird thing to say about a world war two veteran, maybe, but Steve seems to divide everything into black and white. Tony knows the grey in between, is intimately familiar with it, and he doesn't see how Steve can just not acknowledge it – they've had some heated discussions about it, to the point where other SHIELD agents moved from the surrounding tables.

Steve said he didn't want Tony as a replacement for Howard, and he doesn't, Tony can see that now – but sometimes their eyes meet across the table and Tony knows, somehow, that Steve is thinking about Howard. Howard, and Peggy Carter, who Tony remembers visiting when he was little – and he's read Steve's file, anyway, knows what he left behind.

And maybe Tony should respond with some soft reassurance, or some other kind of support for Steve's loss, but instead he babbles about everything in nothing until that look in Steve's eyes go away, until he's back to looking at Tony, and Tony only.

It makes all the difference, and it makes Tony stay when he really ought to abandon ship.

The Avengers, as they have been named – God knows why, it sounds completely ridiculous - are yet again fighting Iron Man. Tony's lost count by now, to be honest. JARVIS hasn't, but that's no fun. The entire thing seems a bit forced by now – both parties intellectually know they're locked in a stalemate, and they're just going through the motions. Steve, Clint and Natasha have become a better team than they started out, a trio instead of a duo and another guy, and they occasionally give Tony a run for his money, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Today, though, they get a visit.

Usually, people back the fuck away when Iron Man and the Avengers start battling. Not this kid, though. He's young, maybe in his early teens, and covered in what Tony thinks are metal cans – he looks like a robot Halloween costume. "Iron Man!" he shouts. Tony, who is trying to catch Steve's shield as he throws it at him, is distracted, and the shield hits him. Steve grabs it from where it lands on the ground, but otherwise stops fighting. Natasha and Clint, too, lower their weapons a bit.

"Who are you?" Tony asks, making JARVIS keep an eye on the Avengers beneath him – lowering their weapons means nothing, he's learned that from experience.

"Titanium Boy," the kid says, and hits a button on his chest – ominous whirring noises fill the air, and the kid starts levitating, unstable on his jet boots. "I'm here to help!"

"Help me?" Tony says, confused – he is the bad guy in this scenario, after all. He uses the others's preoccupation to send a repulsor blast down on Cap, who raises his shield in time and otherwise doesn't react. Bastard.

Titanium Boy nods violently, and almost loses his balance, swooping a bit forward in the air.

"Why the hell would you do that?" Tony asks, and is hit by one of Clint's arrows. They've improved a bit, but not enough to do anything but make him fly backwards – it fucks up the paint job on the armor, though, which is really annoying.

"I'm your sidekick," the kid says resolutely. "That's why I'm Titanium Boy, because that's what your armor's made of, right?"

"It's a titanium-gold alloy, actually," Tony says – Natasha and Clint seem to have stopped paying attention to the kid and are now 100% back in the game, but Steve still squints up at the kid in thought. Tony tries to stay away from the kid so as not to get him caught in the crossfire, but the kid flies towards him like a persistent moth. Clint keeps shooting at him, and Tony eventually has to up his speed to get a safe distance away from Titanium Boy – he knows Clint wouldn't hit him, because of his freakishly good aim, but Tony might hit him with a repulsor blast himself. "Go away, kid," he yells over his shoulder.

"_No_," Titanium Boy insists, and, eager to follow, tries to up his speed too – his clunky jet boots splutter out for a moment, momentarily failing, and he drops like a stone, crying out. Tony guesses that the fuel is dragging him down – his primitive repulsors seem to be modified flamethrowers, which makes Tony nostalgic - on top of the weight of his wannabe-armor. He flies over there in a heartbeat, boosts his speed enough to catch Titanium Boy after only a few seconds, but the boy is still panting loudly as he clings to his front. Clint's stopped shooting.

"You _idiot_," Tony says as he puts Titanium Boy down on the ground, but the words bounce off the boy like a perfectly elastic collision. He's still touching the armor, running his hands over the mechanics of the joints, and Tony is basically being fondled by a pre-teen. He hates his life.

He grabs Titanium Boy's hands, a bit forcefully. "Don't try to help me again, kid," he says, but that doesn't seem to have any effect either.

"You're awesome," Titanium Boy says.

Tony sighs, but agrees. He looks over at the Avengers, who're now standing beside each other, watching them. "That's a wrap," he calls. "He's your responsibility now, Cap." He looks back at Titanium Boy and smacks his ear a bit. "I'm serious, don't try to help me again," he repeats, then flies away before the pure fanboy saturation goes to his head. More than it already has, anyway.

Tony goes to find Steve, afterwards. Steve has quarters on the Helicarrier, which is really sad, but it makes him easy to find – they're more roomy than what Tony suspects the regular SHIELD agent gets. Steve is sitting on his couch, his radio turned on low.

"Hey," Tony says, after a pause. Steve looks at him, and of course the SHIELD quarters are designed so you're pretty much looking at the exit at all times. Steve looks tired, disgruntled, and still dirty from the fight. He still looks unfairly good, but that's not a lane Tony is going down now. "What's up, Steve? You okay?" He never calls Steve Cap, not outside the suit, even though it's become a fairly common nickname by now. It's partly because he's paranoid, and thinks Steve might recognize him, but it's mostly because he enjoys saying Steve – he enjoys the way Steve looks when he says it, too.

"Iron Man left us to care for his sidekick," Steve replies, and Tony swallows his knee-jerk reaction of _not my sidekick._

"Better than bringing him with him to his evil lair, right?" Tony jokes. Steve just shrugs, but the tired lines of his face ease a little bit. Tony takes the seat next to him, and they fall into an easy silence, interrupted by Tony's texts from Pepper. She's wondering where he is, and who Titanium Boy is, and casting some horrible aspersions on his character. Tony replies that he's fine, he's with Steve, and JARVIS is looking into it, and he'd never let a _child_ get hurt, Jesus, Pep – even a kid as annoying as Titanium Boy. His suit wasn't even made of titanium.

Tony looks up from his phone, and realizes Steve has been looking at him, probably for a while. He smirks and raises his eyebrows, and Steve just smiles a little.

"So, Iron Man," Tony says, because Pepper hasn't replied, and, comfortable as it is, the quiet is making him itchy.

"What about him?" Steve asks, still with a faintly amused expression.

"What do you think of him?" Tony asks. He apparently has some until-now undiscovered masochistic tendencies, because this can lead nowhere good.

Steve's humor disappears, and Tony's sad to see it go. "He's a possible threat." That's SHIELD through and through – Steve's actual beliefs and his SHIELD regurgitations aren't hard to differentiate between, mostly because Steve loses that convincing, patriotic gleam in his eyes. It makes Tony sad, but he supposes it can't be helped – Steve is a soldier first of all, and he has no reason to believe otherwise of Iron Man than what SHIELD's told him.

Still. "What do you _really_ think?" Tony presses. "He's not a proper bad guy, is he? I mean, he hasn't killed anyone, or anything." He stops, minutely frozen, because _Gulmira._ Steve's already started talking, and doesn't notice.

"Tony, he beat up Lightning Lad, and he burned down the Super Scope. You can be a bad person without killing people. Iron Man is dangerous – reckless and irresponsible _at best_. You've said it yourself, several times, that whoever's designing the armor has to be brilliant. So why aren't they using that brilliance to serve the American people, help out on that clean energy project you've talked so much about, instead of enabling a supervillain who crashes concerts to amuse himself?"

"Shitty concert, though," Tony says weakly. Steve gives him a glare.

"Don't be facetious. Don't you agree?"

"Yeah, I guess," Tony says, and he's surprised to find that he's only lying a little bit.

Steve keeps looking at him, but his glare shifts into something softer, more intimate. Tony looks down to fiddle with his phone. "Sorry," he says. "Let's talk about something else, I don't. You know. Did you manage to get a good look on Titanium Kid or whatever's armor? Because I just overheard some agents talking about it, but from what I heard it seems kinda dangerous, especially for a kid at – eleven? Twelve? Seriously, somebody needs to stick him in a science program or something—"

"Tony," Steve says. He stands up in front of Tony, forcing Tony to look up at him quizzically.

"What?" he asks, but Steve is grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet, and then they're kissing.

Holy shit.

Tony is kissing _Steve Rogers_.

Steve pulls back before Tony can give this the enthusiastic consent it deserves, mumbling apologies and with a growing blush on his face. Honestly, Tony just wants to eat him up – instead he pulls Steve back, and now they're kissing properly, Tony licking at Steve's mouth until he opens up.

Holy _shit._

Tony is making out with Steve Rogers on the fucking Helicarrier, and it's _awesome_.

At least, it's awesome until the reality of the situation comes crashing down on him. Shit, this is _Captain America_, and he is— he deserves— someone else, someone better, maybe, someone who isn't a part time _supervillain_.

Oh God, Tony's Iron Man, and if he doesn't stop kissing Steve right now, the surveillance guards will get themselves an eyeful – he needs to get JARVIS on that anyway, delete the last few seconds of footage.

Tony reluctantly pulls back, and finds Steve's arms around his back and his own clutching Steve's biceps – his _biceps_, Tony can't believe he's giving up this. Maybe he is self-destructive, and it's not just something people tell him. "I'm sorry," he says between nips at Steve's lips, before pulling back properly. "Shit, Steve I'm sorry, but I—" a hundred excuses are created and discarded in the blink of an eye, "I just can't."

Leaving Steve behind makes Tony feel shittier than anything he's done as Iron Man.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony goes home and makes himself a drink.

It isn't enough, so he makes another one, and another one, and another one – until it's two am and he's drunker than he's been in a long time, his liver working overtime and his hangover already looming in the distance. He still can't sit on his couch, feels a ringing in his ears every time he does, so he's in the workshop. Dum-E chirped worriedly at him after the first few hours, but even he's stopped now.

His bed is too far away. Tony calls Pepper.

"What did you do," she answers the phone with, exhausted. She's in bed, he can see that even though the screen is tiny and suspiciously blurry – he should do something about that. Big is in now. Her hair is sticking up, and he's suddenly fiercely angry at her, for doing the right thing, for making them stay professional. They could've been everything.

"Make my bed closer," he says, instead of the angry, sharp words that stick in his throat. "Why are there no beds in my workshop?"

"Tony, you're drunk," she sighs. He nods, but it makes his head hurt.

"Yes," he says. He gets distracted by a hologram still open on his desk, but he can't reach it from where he's propped up against it. JARVIS, the bastard, doesn't move it for him, and he gives it up as a lost cause. Then he remembers the phone in his hand, and how he's disturbing Pepper's beauty sleep. "I want to come out as Iron Man." The sentence is short and abrupt. He didn't really mean to tell her, but it's _Pepper_.

She's quiet. He can't look at her, suddenly, can't look at her sleepy softness and her big eyes and the way she knows that he's fucking everything up, always. "I'm too tired for this," she says. "Why are you calling me at three o'clock in the morning to tell me that? Did something happen?"

"It's just two am," Tony says, uselessly. "Nothing happened."

She raises her eyebrows, but seems too tired to push. Tony's grateful. "You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you."

"Probably," Tony admits, because it's true, because he's going to fuck up, and Pepper should be prepared.

"I hate you," she says with a sigh, but sits a bit further up in the bed, and when he manages to meet her eyes, they're clear. "I wasn't kidding about the stock drop. The board will file an injunction again, get you down as mentally unstable, suffering from PTSD, unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy." The ease with which she lists off Tony's possible symptoms of bad mental health makes him cringe. "And that's just the tip of iceberg, because you're…you."

"Thanks," he says. "JARVIS, fire Pepper for me, will you?"

_"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir,"_ the AI replies. Pepper smiles a little.

"But you're going to have to leave Stark Industries," Pepper says, growing serious again. "At least until you've worked up a manageable amount of good-will again."

"That's fine." Tony waves a hand. "You're basically the CEO anyway, aren't you? It's time I made it official."

Pepper drops her phone. When she retrieves it, her face is flushed and she looks angry. "I'm not doing this when you've been drinking, Tony," she says finally. "I'm back to bed, call me tomorrow, and for fuck's sake, _sober up._" She hangs up on him, and he's left with the silence of his workshop.

Tony can't remember the last time Pepper swore. It's kind of hot.

_"Might I suggest going to bed, sir?"_

"Yeah, yeah, stop nagging at me," Tony says, and stumbles upstairs.

In the morning, after Tony's stopped wanting to kill himself and take the world with him, he has JARVIS type up a formal letter asking Pepper to be his CEO.

He locks himself up in the workshop and takes away her access when she tries to get in.

Tony takes the suit and goes flying, even though he doesn't really want to. It's ridiculous, that he feels some kind of obligation to Iron Man - what used to be a way to give the Man the finger is now something completely different. He feels shaky and unstable, like the hangover still hasn't worn off, and when the Avengers show up - as they inevitably do - he can't help but think of how pointless it is, how incredibly ridiculous this all is. Supervillains have stayed out of New York since he became the resident supervillain, but how the fuck is that any of his responsibility? He's caught between reason and emotion, between the kneejerk reaction of fuck everything and the want - the need - to absolve some of the blood on his hands.

He looks at the Avengers, too, looks at the way they're still missing something, and thinks, I could be that piece.

Steve needs someone to tell him no. Natasha and Clint will if they have to, Tony knows, but they see Captain America too much to be a reckoning force - Steve isn't always right, and he needs someone to tell him that.

Dumbing himself down for SHIELD is painful. "I'm working on it," he says at the bi-weekly update. "I'm stumped regarding the power source – I can't think of anything small enough to generate the amount of power needed for the suit." Tony resists the urge to look down and double-check that the arc reactor is completely covered by his suit. "Without knowing the power source, we can only speculate so much about Iron Man's ultimate capabilities." He looks at Fury pointedly. "Maybe if your agents gave him an actual run for his money, we could chart his limits properly."

After the meeting, Steve approaches him. _This is how it goes,_ Tony thinks. They haven't spoken since the kiss – Tony hasn't been on the Helicarrier, and Steve hasn't come to visit him. Tony resolutely does not wonder why.

"Can we talk" Steve asks. Tony looks around them, at the meeting room that's emptying out, Natasha the last one out the door. She gives Tony a raised eyebrow and a smirk, and Tony maturely resists making a face back.

"Sure," he says easily. "What do you want, Cap?"

"Don't play this game," Steve warns. He steps closer, and Tony has to push him a bit back. "I want to know why you left."

"Steve," Tony says quickly. "Seriously, leave it be. No means no. I should know, I mean, I have experience— not with _that_, obviously, I would never, but there have been claims— fucking tabloids—"

"But," and Steve falters here, looks so earnest and confused and heartbroken, "you kissed me back."

"A mistake," Tony says, and looks anywhere but Steve's face, can't deal with the myriad of emotions crossing it before he lands on an expression so stoic it hurts. "I do that sometimes."

Steve pulls back, not just with his body, but with every fiber of his being.

_That's it_, Tony thinks. _That's that, done._ His stoic expression isn't half as good as Steve's, so he scrubs a hand over his face and goes to leave.

"Wait," Steve says, when he's almost by the door, "we're still friends, right?"

How is this man _real._ Tony doesn't turn around. "Yup, totally," he says. His voice doesn't waver, and he closes the door after himself.

Tony lays low until it's time for the next bi-weekly meeting. Convincing Pepper that he's not full of shit has been time-consuming, on top of wanting to drink himself into oblivion – she also wants to choose the moment her new position is official. Tony doubts much will change, except she won't have to forge his signature anymore.

He's seen Steve around, but it's been achingly polite, plastic and a shadow of what they used to be. Tony remembers the late night talks about Peggy, when he talked about how she took him out to ice cream sometimes, and he remembers Steve's eyes shining, even in the darkness.

Tony is a terrible person.

He goes to get coffee from one of the smaller break rooms before the meeting, and almost turns right around again when he sees who's sitting at the table. Steve, who looked up at the sound of someone entering, gives him an awkward smile.

"Hi," he says, and now Tony can't just leave. Fuck.

Tony twitches his lips in a semblance of a smile back, and moves to the coffee maker, his back to Steve. "How's it going?" he asks, turning it on. It's terribly intricate, just the way he likes it, and he imagines many a SHIELD agent going crazy over it.

"Good," Steve replies, after a slight pause. The silence that follows is mind-blowingly awkward. "How is that, uh, energy project coming along?" Steve asks.

"Good, good," Tony says – the coffee maker is almost done, and then he can have his soul-crushed coffee and get _out of here_. "I mean, we're having some minor issues with some," Tony glances over his shoulder, "stuff, but it's no biggie."

"That's … good," Steve says, and the coffee is _finally done_. Tony hightails it out of the break room with only the smallest of goodbyes.

The debriefing goes as normal. Tony's unsure of how much to reveal to SHIELD – even if they aren't Tony, they still have some decent engineers, and he's wary of them.

"I can't reverse-engineer to a point beyond this without some actual specs," he says, and hates himself a little. "Can't your guys grab me a gauntlet or something, so I can do some actual analyzing?"

He forces himself to look at Steve, like he would've done before, and Steve shrugs a little.

"Is that everything, Stark?" Fury asks.

"Mmyep," Tony says, fiddling with his phone to let the SHIELD agents regain control of the plasma screen.

"Good," Fury says, and is the first one out the door. Tony follows him.

"Nick," he starts, and completely ignores the way Fury sends him a dirty look and ups his walking pace. "What if you tried getting Iron Man on your side?"

"A supervillain on my team," Fury states flatly. "Just what I always wanted."

"I know about the HYDRA thing," Tony says, and enjoys Fury's eye widening the tiniest bit. "Yeah, you really need to work on your security."

"Stark," Fury growls, but Tony interrupts him.

"My point is, he can't be a complete bad guy, right? Maybe, if you just let the guy explain himself—"

"No," Fury says.

"Going by the armor, he could be a huge asset," Tony argues.

"Absolutely not," Fury emphasizes, looking at Tony suspiciously. They've reached Fury's office, so Fury stops walking and turns to him fully. "Iron Man is a loose cannon. He's an unstable force, and doesn't exactly seem like a team player." Fury regards him. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised you empathize, though, Stark. He seems like your kind of guy."

He enters the office and shuts the door in Tony's face.

The next fight is more severe.

Tony's angry, angry because he _tries_, and nobody fucking cares, and everybody tells him it's a bad idea, because it's _him_, and isn't that the fucking truth. It's why he can't keep anyone, Rhodey, Obie, Pepper, Steve – any of them, they all leave and he's left and it's so fucking _shitty_.

His aggression bleeds into the armor, and he's violent, lashing out at Steve and Natasha, throwing Clint off the roof he's stationed on. Clint is caught by Steve, but he's stumbling. Tony knows they will stand until the last second, he and Natasha, they're trained for that – but he can't focus on them right now, ends up punching Steve so he flies backwards and lands on an unfortunate car.

Tony's not the only one who's angry, though – Steve is brutal too, grabbing Tony's wrist and _twisting_ so Tony's entire body twists with it, flying around and on the ground. He wraps his hand around Steve's ankle and fires up the repulsors, skidding along the ground until he angles upwards, dragging Steve with him. He lets go, and Steve rolls as he falls, getting to his feet immediately. He's panting hard, and his eyes are dark and angry. Tony feels a vicious glee at the sight.

Natasha shoots at him, and aims for his eyes again. The glass cracks, but withstands the force of three bullets in quick succession – he's had it upgraded since last time. He flies into her, drives her back and blasts her right hand. She drops the gun with a quiet swear, but immediately finds one for her left hand, cradling the right to her chest. Natasha runs to the side, and Tony's about to follow when one of Clint's arrows attach to his hip and push him to the side. Tony's distracted, and Steve comes up to punch him again. Tony grabs hold of his uniform, kicks off and flies them high above the ground. He holds Steve up with one arm as he punches him across the nose with the other, and Steve gathers his feet up to kick him in the chest – Tony almost loses his grip, and quickly dives back down, dragging Steve down with him as he pushes the boots, stopping some mere feet from the ground.

Steve pants, and Tony releases his grip. They grapple, rolling around before Tony gets away, jets back up in the air with an audible boost from his repulsors.

He can see Natasha and Clint exchange a glance, and he's just about to engage them when Titanium Boy arrives.

"Iron Man!" he shouts, reminiscent of his first interruption. Tony almost wants to put his faceplate up, because the armor can't properly convey the _are you fucking kidding me_ currently on his face. Titanium Boy is hovering, still not completely stable, and he's holding some kind of rectangular device in his hands, like an old walkie-talkie.

"Let me guess," Tony says. "You've come to help."

Titanium Boy nods, and shakes the device. He's not that far up, thirty stories or so, but a fall could still be lethal, and Tony drifts closer, ready to catch him should his jet boots fail again.

"Kid, seriously, you should just go home," Tony says.

Titanium Boy's face grows dark. "No," he says. "Let me help, I can help!" He lifts the device up again.

"What is that, anyway?" Tony asks. He checks the ground below – Natasha and Clint have moved closer, and Steve is back on his feet and ready for another round. They're all staring up at them, holding up their hands to shield from the sun – Natasha, who's right arm is still unusable, has to shield her eyes with her gun.

"It's a power-up," Titanium Boy says. He aims it at Tony and pushes a button.

At first, Tony doesn't understand what's happening. His UI goes completely black, and JARVIS isn't there to tell him what the problem is – he's falling, wind whirling about him, but the armor doesn't allow him to feel it. The sensory receptors are deactivated, and the entire armor is frozen. Tony's caught in the position he was holding to stay stable in the air, and he can't reach the switch to deploy flaps.

He's falling, and it feels like ages, the armor turned into a coffin around him. Fuck every position he's been in throughout his entire life, getting defeated by a well-meaning, pimply pre-teen and _falling to death_ has to be the most embarrassing way to die he can think of.

"JARVIS," he says, and repeats, and repeats, a litany of letters – he chokes on them, because _no, this is wrong, this can't be it—?_

The armor unfreezes literally ten feet off the ground, and he's shocked into action, the UI booting up, but too slowly, he needs to deploy the flaps—

He hits the ground hard.

There's a deafening ringing in his ears when he comes to. He coughs, but he can't move just yet, and lies there waiting as his hearing comes back. Steve is leaning over him, looking worried, with his hands around Tony's neck. Tony tenses, until he hears what Steve's shouting: "I can't open it, how do I open it?!"

In the background, he can hear sobbing, and Titanium Boy's cries. "I didn't mean it, that _wasn't supposed to happen, why did it happen_—" And Natasha's shushing him, saying, "let's get you home to your parents, Russell."

"I didn't— I didn't want—"

"No," Natasha says. Tony tunes Steve out to listen to her, the calming quality of her voice. "Of course you didn't, I understand, but sometimes, your actions can have unforeseen consequences. You need to learn to look for them too, when you do something, and know what to do if they happen." Titanium Boy's sobbing quiets a bit.

Tony turns his head the tiniest bit to look at them, and he can still feel Steve's fingers around his neck, groping at the latch that appeared when he moved.

The faceplate opens, and Tony looks up, into Steve's wide eyes. "_Tony_," Steve breathes. His brow furrows, and he looks almost betrayed, leaning back. "How badly are you hurt," he asks in a monotone, his eyes looking up and down the armor and coming to rest on Tony's face again, his disbelief still painfully visible.

"Pretty badly," Tony says, but it comes out a cough, and his back complains loudly when he tries to sit up. He falls back down, and marvels at the fact that he hasn't broken his spine, even though his left arm is kind of cradled under him, and he can't feel it at all.

Steve nods, all careful professionalism. "We'll get some EMTs out here," he says.

"Not necessary," Tony starts, but he still can't sit up properly and his arm is a mess, his head hurts and his feet itch.

Steve looks at him coldly as he tries to get up again. "Don't even dare," he says, and stands up, waving at Clint.

Tony looks after him and lies back down. "JARVIS, what happened?"

_"Situation analysis is not available at this time, sir."_

"What was that?"

_"Device analysis is not available at this time, sir_."

Well, fuck.

Tony gets out of there before the EMTs arrive. JARVIS gives him a small sedative and flies the suit home on autopilot. Despite the sedative, it hurts like a motherfucker – he can't stretch out his arm to stabilize the flight, so JARVIS has to compensate. Tony hopes it's just broken.

The flight is long and wears on Tony – he really, really needs to get some real estate in New York.

Disassembling the armor is luckily more streamlined than it used to be, like that time Pepper walked in on him. Tony's glad the soft clothing he wears under the armor is still covering him, because he has a feeling what's waiting underneath is a less than pleasant sight – even with Tony's high tolerance for these things.

He collapses on his couch, and moans pitifully as it jangles his arm. He needs to x-ray it, but he can't get back up.

"Pepper," he whines. "JARVIS, get me Pepper. And painkillers, more painkillers."

Tony's body's idea of rest – which happens to coincide with Pepper's – and Tony's own are two very different things. Tony's right, of course, which is why he's up and running no more than a week after the fall.

The Helicarrrier is bustling, SHIELD agents running around. Tony walks like he owns the place, his arm in a sling again, and gets to Fury's office without interruptions. He doesn't knock, just bursts right in. Fury, who's doing paperwork, looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

"You're going to let me on the team," Tony says.

Fury leans back in his chair. "Now why in the hell would I do that?"

"I don't know," Tony admits honestly. "But SHIELD hasn't accosted me once, and I got to your office without being cuffed – which would be really uncomfortable, by the way, so, you know, don't do that – so I'm thinking you have a plan here."

Fury says nothing, and waits.

Tony's eyes narrow. "What do you want?"

"Full funding for the Avengers," Fury says immediately, smirking. "Quarters included. And I want that new comm system you've been holding out on us, along with free consultations on Helicarrier maintenance and upgrade, and other R&D-projects."

"No way in hell," Tony says, and Fury shrugs.

"Too bad."

In the moment that follows, Tony noticeably doesn't leave. Fury seems to know he's won, because he sits up straighter and his smirk grows.

"Free consultations for a month," Tony says.

"A year," Fury says.

"Three months."

"Nine."

"Six."

"Done." Fury nods. He stands up to shake Tony's hand. "Welcome to the Avengers Initiative, Mr. Stark."

Tony, now grumpy at being bested by a one-eyed government pawn, goes to leave.

"But," Fury calls after him, "you'll have to convince Captain Rogers to take you on yourself."

Steve's in his rooms again.

Tony doesn't knock.

Steve gets one look at him, and says, "Get out."

"I'm sorry," Tony says. "Steve, I'm so sorry, but—"

"_Get out_."

"Just let me explain, seriously, it was like—I dunno, fun and liberating, and I was doing good work, but then you came, and—"

Steve stands up in a whirlwind of motion, and seems like he's going to grab Tony and toss him out the door. He wraps a hand around Tony's arm to force him out, but it's the broken one, and Tony stops rambling to swear loudly. Steve immediately drops his hand, and looks at Tony with chagrined eyes.

"Sorry," he says, not sounding very sorry at all despite his expression, "but you have to leave now."

Tony moves backward through the door step, but only because he feels literally pushed back. "C'mon, Steve, let me explain—"

"You lied," Steve snaps. "You lied, and you let me think— I imagine it was great fun, watching us all stumbling about like bumbling idiots, trying to neutralize Iron Man, while you just sat there."

"No," Tony says, "_no_, it wasn't, please."

Steve just looks at him, and the pure distrust in his eyes makes something in Tony's chest ache. Tony breathes out hard. A silence falls upon them, both of them coming to terms with what this is, what their relationship has devolved into.

"Fury says I can join the Avengers," Tony blurts out. Steve raises and eyebrow and scoffs, his half-smile anything but glad.

"And?"

"He says I need your consent."

Steve is silent. He looks at Tony again, and Tony meets his eyes, trying to project trust and good-will and stupid shit like that. It doesn't seem to work. "I'll think about it," Steve says. "Now leave."

Tony does.


	4. Chapter 4

He doesn't stay away for long, though. Steve is adamant in his avoidance of Tony, but luckily, Tony's just as adamant in his persistence to bother Steve.

This week, it's exotic fruit. He sends Steve jackfruits and lychee nuts, baskets full, with varying notes at the bottom: _'You're the bestest Cap there ever was. XX, your secret admirer (p.s. Iron Man is so cool, you should get him to join)'_, _'Because nothing says "I would be an awesome addition to your team like Australian fruit_"', _'You can't all be brawn, you need a brainy one'_, _'I am funnier than Velma – and much sexier too'_.. the list goes on.

"Please stop," Steve says to him, the next time Tony's on the Helicarrier to badger him.

"Oh, don't think I haven't noticed every hobo in New York City eating fine fruits since I started," Tony replies. "It makes me feel good, like I'm indirectly giving to charity. Helping the lesser fortunate, all that." He looks around him. "Maybe you should feed some of the agents here, though, they're skinny as fuck."

"Tony," Steve says. "Can't you just let me figure this out in peace?"

"Not really," Tony says. "Wanna go to the opera?"

Steve gives him a weird look. "The _opera_?"

Tony shrugs. "Yeah, nevermind, bad idea. I don't really like it either. Museum? Theater? Movie? Food? Food first, I could go for food."

Steve sighs, and wow, Tony's getting Pepper flashbacks here. Time to bail. He grabs the basket of dragonfruit by the door as punishment.

The next week, Tony forces Steve to sit through a PowerPoint about why Iron Man is awesome, and would infect the rest of the Avengers with his awesome, so that everybody could be awesome.

At least, he plans to force Steve to sit through it – it turns out that without the suit, there's not a lot Tony can do to keep a super soldier from leaving the room. A SHIELD agent, who's hanging from something on the ceiling fiddling with the projector, looks down at Tony helplessly. Tony waves a hand. "You guys are ninjas, right? You can get down." He leaves to continue pestering Steve.

So Tony keeps a 24/7 watch of what the Avengers are up to. It's not a big deal. Sometimes, like right now, he's really glad he does.

"What _is_ that?" he asks, looking at the feed in front of him. It's bad, from a street cam, but the Avengers are easy to spot and identify – whatever they're fighting, not so much.

_"I believe the Avengers are currently battling the Hulk, sir."_

"The whatnow? The _Hulk_?"

_"Yes, sir. Simplified as the alter-ego of Dr. Bruce Banner, the Hulk is a byproduct of gamma radiation, created in an attempt to recreate the Super Soldier Serum."_

"You're kidding me," Tony mutters, his eyes fixed on the hulking, green figure. "Always with the serum. Why haven't I heard of him – it – him?"

_"Dr. Banner was first identified as the Hulk during an incident on the campus of Culver University, and was on the run thereafter. He briefly reappeared in New York to fight another, similar byproduct, which resulted in high damages to the Harlem area in particular. I believe you were otherwise occupied in Afghanistan at this time, sir."_

Fucking Afghanistan. "Right," Tony says, throwing one last glance at the shaky feed. "They look like they need help, don't they? Load up the armor, will you?"

_"Your wish is my command, sir," _the AI replies. Tony, grinning, walks over to the armor assembly pad.

When Tony gets on the scene, Clint's knocked out, hunched against a wall. It looks like he was thrown at it. The Hulk is roaring, loud and enraged – Natasha's shooting at him, but it only seems to irritate. She's mussed and panting slightly, a bleeding gash on her temple. Steve throws his shield at the Hulk, and distracts him from going after Natasha. The Hulk grabs the shield and throws it back at Steve, but Steve dodges it, and fetches it off the ground.

The Hulk roars again as Natasha keeps shooting, looking in vain for weak spots. He runs towards her, and raises his arm.

Tony lands some ten feet behind them, knee down. "Tranqs," he tells JARVIS, and six identical tranquilization darts fly toward the Hulk to scatter on his back, digging into the green skin.

The Hulk stumbles to his knees, and turns with his upper body towards Tony, his shout turning confused and woozy. He gets one leg back under him and stands back up – it looks like it takes effort, but then he clenches his fists and grunts, and he's back in action. Fuck, but Tony was really counting on that.

"Took you long enough," Natasha calls. Steve keeps silent, but Tony's too busy to properly interpret the look on his face.

The Hulk reaches for Tony, but he flies away, just out of reach – the Hulk is unfairly quick for someone of that size, and who's just been tranqed with enough to fell several horses.

Tony flies over to Natasha and grips her outstretched hand. She effortlessly finds a way to lean on the armor without it being too much of a hassle for Tony, and he boosts her towards a roof. She grabs hold of the ledge and climbs up, looking down on the Hulk and Steve. "Go," she says to Tony.

He feels bad, but they've got to be realistic here – her particular skill set doesn't apply that much to an enemy like the Hulk. Tony flies down again and flies circles around the Hulk. Luckily, the Hulk hasn't completely recovered from the tranquilizers, and his head swivels around. "Steve!" Tony shouts.

Steve, who's been waiting for the perfect moment, throws the shield at the back of the Hulk's head with all his might. It bounces off, seemingly without causing damage, but then the Hulk stumbles forward and lands face-down on the ravaged street.

Tony flies up to help Natasha down, and lands. He flips the faceplate up to give Steve a smug look.

"Thank you for the help," Steve says grudgingly. Tony's almost impressed by how ingrained his manners are.

"No problem," he answers breezily. "You know what you have to do now, right?"

Natasha, who's looking between them, gives a twitch of her lips. Tony's never sure whether she likes him or not. She goes over to Clint, who's still propped up against the wall, to check his vitals – he seems to be waking up.

"Welcome to the Avengers," Steve says, with a sigh.

"Wow, that was totally heartfelt," Tony says. "And also really, really unexpected. Luckily for you guys, I coincidentally built a tower that might hypothetically house a superhero team of four."

Steve just looks at him, but Tony can tell he wants to smile. Tony's hilarious.

They move in one by one. Tony's the first, of course. The building's still being built, but the private quarter section is done, which is good. Tony reserved the one highest up, because it's the one closest to the labs and his workshop – even though the difference is just a few seconds in the elevator, he wants it. The armor's up there too, after all.

Clint's the second. It takes a week after that before Natasha, the next one, moves in, and it's surprisingly comfortable – Clint took the whole "I'm actually a supervillain"-thing very calmly. Tony has a feeling he takes pretty much everything calmly. They don't interact much – sometimes they bounce into each other in the kitchen, or in front of one of the TVs. Clint doesn't talk a lot, but Tony talks too much, so it works out well – and Clint can be fairly hilarious in his own right. Sometimes he has these flashes of desert-dry wit that Tony bets is inherited from Natasha.

Natasha moves in too, and then Tony sees both of them or none at all. They're welded together, like a unit, and Tony remembers how they were when he first fought them, how they completed each other and completely forgot about Steve.

It doesn't matter that Clint's gotten his other half back, though, because Tony's too busy badgering Steve to move the hell in already, or visiting Bruce at SHIELD.

"Dr. Banner!" Tony exclaims, opening the door to Dr. Banner's "recommended quarters". A prison cell, in other words.

"Mr. Stark?" Banner asks, with a slight frown. He's dressed in a non-descript manner, sitting hunched over a tablet.

Tony's pretty sure it's a Samsung. He shudders internally.

"Yep, that's me," he says. "What's up, big guy?"

Banner flinches at the name, and Tony regrets his choice of words for a millisecond before continuing.

"I've read your research since we last met," he says.

Banner frowns. "We met – the other guy fought you yesterday," he says. Either he remembers, or SHIELD briefed him, Tony can't be sure.

Tony shrugs. "I'm a quick study. The Hulk is very impressive, by the way. Anyway, very interesting stuff, your work. I was wondering about your thoughts on the possible effects of WR 104's supernovae explosions – you mentioned it in your first dissertation, but didn't go very in-depth?"

Banner looks surprised. His eyes, so sad it makes Tony want to give him a hug or something, widen in pleased disbelief. He doesn't reply until Tony raises an eyebrow, then he coughs a bit and gathers his thought. "Well," he starts, and continues on to explain the situation in much more detail than Tony was able to find sifting through the net late last night.

They spend the rest of the hour Tony harassed Fury into giving him with Banner talking about Banner's research, Tony's research, and it's _great_. Tony has a physical need for this man in his R&D-department, and not just to get that look out of his eyes.

A SHIELD agent raps on the door. "Time's up!" she shouts through.

"Yeah, yeah," Tony says. "See you around, Dr. Banner?"

"Please," and Banner is smiling awkwardly, "call me Bruce."

"Tony," Tony says. He grins too, and does a messy salute before he's out the door again.

"We have to get Bruce out of SHIELD," Tony announces to Natasha and Clint. They're gathered over breakfast, which is rare – Tony usually keeps all hours of the night, and Clint and Natasha just seem to wake up when they have to, no matter the time. Tony wouldn't be surprised if they didn't use alarm clocks, just opened their eyes simultaneously like vampire ninjas. Actually – that's a lie. He knows Clint uses alarm clocks – he remembers him shooting it the first week, before Tony had it reinforced, when it was just the two of them.

"How are you planning to do that?" Clint asks, his bowl of 10% cereal, 90% sugar almost depleted.

Tony shrugs. "I'm buying Fury a new eye-patch," he says.

Natasha snorts. Tony gives her a glare, and receives one of her little smirks in return. "Buy him a unicorn too," she suggests. "That would help as much."

"What do you suggest, then, agent Romanoff?" Tony might sound a bit prissy, but he's lost all his leverage with SHIELD, and no way in hell is he doing _more_ free work for them.

"Move him in here," she says. "Steve can supervise, and Coulson adores Steve. And if you've got Coulson, you've got Fury."

"Steve hasn't moved in yet," Clint interjects.

It's Natasha's turn to shrug, a knowing smile on her lips. "He will."

True to her word, Steve moves in a few days later. He didn't tell Tony, so it's with surprise Tony bumps into him in the elevator, carrying three boxes.

Tony looks at him, then at the number pad – once, twice, before his fingers moves from the workshop number to the one that is to be Steve's floor.

"Let me help you with that," Tony says, with about as much enthusiasm as he'd say, 'sure, let me beat that baby seal for you.'

Steve speaks from behind the boxes. "You don't have to – really, I can handle it."

"No, no," Tony says, a bit more strongly this time. "I insist, it'll be fun." The elevator stops, and he takes one of the boxes from Steve, then winces – it _definitely_ isn't as light as Steve made it seem. "Jeez, what do you keep in here?" he complains.

"Books," Steve says sheepishly. "Sorry, I thought—"

"I'll build you a library," Tony says, and walks out of the elevator.

"What is this?" Steve asks, looking around him.

"A library," Tony replies proudly. He made some last-minute edits to the upper floor renovations – not a big deal, and the result is pretty damn cool. The library is retro and comfy enough for Steve to feel comfortable, brown and red the recurring colors running through the soft furniture and the shelves formed in a half-circle. He didn't really know what to use this space for, anyway.

"Why did you build a library?" Steve asks. God, by this rate he should be renamed Captain Oblivious.

"Because we needed a library," Tony says slowly. "And I said I'd build you one, so – there you go. Now you have a place for all those books!"

"I have a place for them," Steve says. He sounds almost faint. "There are _shelves. _In my apartment."

"Well, now you can have more," Tony says, and glances at Steve. He doesn't see the happy expression he was expecting – instead, Steve's face pinches, like he bit into something sour.

"You can't just buy me a library and expect me to forgive you."

It takes a moment for the words to digest, but when they do, Tony immediately reacts. "Hey, I didn't—"

"You can't just _buy people stuff_ and expect everything to be alright," Steve says, louder. He sounds like this is something he's been wanting to get off his chest.

Tony swallows, looks at the floor. Well. "For your information," he says, eyes flicking up to meet Steve's, "I don't expect anything. Fuck your sanctimonious bullshit."

Only his pride hinders him from storming out – he takes a more dignified leave, and tries to remember how much alcohol is in the workshop. He'll have to stock up anyway.

Bruce's SHIELD agents have learned just to let Tony in without saying anything now. He still tries to bribe them, but it's not as much fun when they're all stone-faced.

"Hey," Tony says, taking off his suit jacket as he comes into the room. Bruce sits on the bed with his hands folded on his lap – meditating or just thinking, Tony can't be sure. He snaps him out of it anyway.

"So I was thinking," Tony continues, dropping his jacket over one of the two chairs, sitting down and leaning back. "The Hulk."

Bruce, who still hasn't opened his eyes, tenses.

"How does he work?" Tony asks, eyes resting on Bruce's as he slowly opens them. He looks tired, worn, and it's obvious he doesn't want to do this.

Tough luck. "Is he uncontrollable?"

"Yes," Bruce says finally.

"Is he uncontrollable because the only time he gets out is when you're angry?" Bruce looks at him, and Tony shrugs. "I read all about your accident," he says. "And the fight in Harlem. He fought for the right side then, didn't he? He didn't punch out civilians, he went for the baddie."

"For amusement," Bruce says. "Don't give him morality when he has none. He— I—" He stops to find the right words. "The other guy is driven by instinct," he settles on. "It's—exposure. Stripped down to my bones." This is what Bruce fears, Tony can see it – that at the base of himself, he's just this mindless angry monster, driven to destroy. "He's not a good guy."

"He could be," Tony says. "You know I—well, you know me. I'm a big fan of second chances. Or third, or fourth, maybe even fifth. I've needed them. _You've _needed them. Maybe he needs one, too."

"You're saying I could ... learn to control him, join the Avengers and live happily ever after with your patchwork team?" Bruce says, but there's no humor in his voice. "That's a nice thought."

"And you should consider it," Tony says. He looks into Bruce's eyes again. There's a quiet despair there, more obvious for their conversation, along with the ever-present sadness and loneliness. Tony needs to get Bruce out of here. He gets up. "Do you want me to leave? I have a 10 o'clock at Stark Industries, but I could ditch it."

"No, you should go," Bruce says, his words parsed out like he has to think them through. "I'll see you."

Tony nods, and leaves.

"I want to apologize," Steve says one day during dinner. Or, well, Tony is the only one still eating – Natasha and Clint have already left, citing SHIELD business, and Steve eats like there's a time limit. A short one.

"For what," Tony says, poking at the peas left on his plate. Who made this? Tony didn't even know they had peas.

"For what I said when you showed me the library. It wasn't very kind, I'm sorry."

"Do you take it back?" Tony asks, eyes challenging over his half-eaten dinner.

"No," Steve says, and winces. "No, wait," he says to Tony, who's standing up. "I mean, you can't deny you have a tendency to show affection," Tony could swear Steve gets a little read at the word, "or, apologize? Through, uh, materialism. And that's—fine, really."

"Preposterous," Tony says, then he gets an idea. "You really want to apologize for insulting me so brutally?" Steve nods, almost reluctantly. "Great news, because I need your help with something."

"_Absolutely not_," Fury says. Tony feels like he's been in this situation before. Fury looks between the two of them. "Really, Cap? Stark, I was almost expecting, but _you?_"

Steve shrugs. "I believe Tony has a point, sir," he says. "Dr. Banner would benefit greatly from the change in scenery, and the Avengers would be very close-by should an incident occur."

Fury looks behind them. Tony follows his line of sight and sees Coulson, who must have supernatural hearing and multi-tasking abilities if he's hearing their conversation while having one with two SHIELD agents on his own – still, he stops talking to give a slight nod, and Fury returns his attention to them. Steve gives an encouraging smile, and Fury sighs. "On a probationary basis only, and SHIELD reserves the right to terminate this agreement at any time, without warning or questions being asked." His eye stares Tony down. "Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir," Steve says, and Tony repeats it in a definitely less respectful tone.

"Go get him, then," Fury says, like Bruce is a dog they're sitting. Tony thinks it's a good thing he's getting him out of here.

Having Bruce stay with them makes everything better. It doesn't matter that Steve suddenly has stuff to do whenever Tony enters the room, or that Pepper's been too busy with Stark Industries to meet him for sushi – Tony has his very own playmate now, a live-in one, who turns into a giant green rage-monster and lets Tony _experiment on him._

Bruce is awesome.

Right now, they're in their lab, casually trying to rewrite the laws of physics. Bruce breaks the silence. "So what's up with you and Steve?"

Correction: Bruce is awesome when he doesn't try to solve Tony's stuff.

"What do you mean?" Tony asks, knowing it futile, as he scribbles on a tablet in his self-designed shorthand.

"You know," Bruce says, and waits. Tony tries outlasting him, but it just isn't done.

"Just some stuff," he ends up saying vaguely. "Why do you care, anyway?"

"We chat in the library sometimes."

"The—the _library?_ I knew it, I _knew it_, I totally knew he'd end up using it, the bastard." Tony presses down harder on the tablet, not sure why this is so important to him.

"What?" Bruce asks, taken aback.

"Oh, I, uh, built Steve the library. Kind of."

Bruce stops working to look at him. "You built him the library?" He does that _thing_ he does, with his face, when he's totally judging Tony. It's Tony's least favorite Bruce expression. "Damn, you've got it bad."

Tony gives him a twitch of his lips, waves a hand and looks back down at the tabled. He doesn't reply.

Steve's watching Snow White when Tony comes in. He does that sometimes, watches movies and reads books he can remember from when he was young, before the war came and consumed everything.

Steve told Tony once, before he knew Tony was Iron Man. It makes Tony almost embarrassed, awed at how unflinchingly honest Steve is, telling Tony about the pain of leaving everyone behind, like he'd done in his bizarre circumstances.

Tony hasn't thought about it until now, but he wonders who's there to hear Steve talk about the Howling Commandos – whether there's anyone at all. The thought makes him ache, even as it's tinged with green.

He steels himself, and plops down next to Steve as the Queen monologs to the apple. Steve turns towards him the faintest degree, and Tony feels the place where their knees touch acutely. He doesn't move away.

Neither does Steve.

It's not a big deal.

Or, at least, it shouldn't be – Tony just looks around the table, looks at Bruce laughing quietly with Natasha as Clint tells the story of Budapest, looks at Steve, who's watching them all with a content expression. Tony feels detached, excluded in a way he can't put his words to – at least until Steve meets his eyes, expression unchanging. They exchange a look over the table.

Tony butts in when Clint takes a breath, forcing himself into the conversation, and soon enough he has Bruce and Natasha laughing at them both.

It's good. It's very good.

And then one time, they're in the kitchen, and Tony stumbles in to find Steve making breakfast.

"Urghk," Tony says, which is about how much sense he can be bothered to make at this hour.

Steve's eggs crackle in the pan. "Did you sleep at all?"

"Nope," Tony replies, making a bee-line for the coffee machine. "Had to ... some stuff for SHIELD."

"That's what you get," Steve chides, but it's light, and Tony takes no offense. He downs his coffee in several large gulps, then gets a glass to fill with water. The sink is next to Steve, so he leans against him. He's tired, and Steve is so warm and great, and he really hopes the caffeine kicks in before he does anything stupid.

"How are you even awake," Tony grumbles, "it's like you're taunting me."

"I can make some more, if you want?" Steve offers, gesturing to the eggs. The smell of bacon, which hit Tony when he first entered the room, seems really tempting. Tony shrugs.

"If you wanna."

Steve raises his eyebrows and goes to the fridge, taking out more ingredients.

"So, what exactly are you making for SHIELD?" Steve asks after a while. The food is done, so he sets down a plate in front of Tony and sits down opposite him.

Tony, too tired to simplify his work for Steve – which is not to say Steve is stupid, just that Tony is really very smart – delves into a complex explanation of what he's doing in the workshop. Steve makes the appropriate noises in the right places, and his face lights up with understanding occasionally, but otherwise he seems content to just sit there and let Tony talk.

Steve only interrupts him once, to remind him of his eggs – made sunny side up, perfect without Steve even having to ask – getting cold.

Tony finally realizes he's supposed to be participating in a dialog, not a monolog – something he often has to remind himself of – and stops talking. "So, uh, what's up with you?"

Steve chuckles lightly. His breakfast is long gone, and he seems to be waiting for Tony to finish, making gestures every time Tony stops with the fork halfway to his mouth.

"Clint showed me the rest of the Star Wars movies today."

"That _punk_," Tony exclaims immediately. "I'm sorry, Jesus. See if he gets those arrows any time soon."

"I liked them," Steve says, and Tony pinches his brow exaggeratedly, because _of course he did_. He hands Steve his plate, and Steve takes both his and Tony's over to the sink.

Tony stares in silence. "Steve, he says finally. "Are you doing what I think you're doing?"

Steve adds some soap to the water that's now filling the sink.

"Oh, my _God_," Tony says. "_Why?"_

"I like it," Steve says. "It's calming. Besides, JARVIS told me it was better for the environment." He turns to look at Tony seriously. "The environment is very important, Tony."

"Yeah, yeah," Tony mutters, glaring at Steve. Like he doesn't know. He goes to refill his glass of water. Steve, who's got his hands buried in dish water, doesn't move away, which forces Tony to lean against him to reach the tap properly. Steve bumps Tony's hip with his own and gives him a small grin, and Tony can't help but smile back.

It's like a shock, the way the tension in the room suddenly skyrockets. Tony becomes hyper-aware of his hip touching Steve's, imagining he can feel the warm skin beneath Steve's pants. He shifts a bit, puts his glass down. Steve's eyes have darkened, and Tony's sure his own have too, getting stuck on Steve's eyes and his _mouth_, so fucking tempting in the morning light.

He's not sure who moves first, but then it's Steve's soapy, wet hands on his back, Steve's muscles under his fingers, Steve's lips on his, and then they're kissing. The hot lick of Steve's tongue reminds him of the other time, the rooftop, the way his heart went from his throat to his stomach in two seconds flat, but this is _different_, this is _new,_ and Tony feels like he's going to burst with it, his want – his need – tearing at him.

Steve pulls back, and Tony imagines a hundred different scenarios, all of them ending with Tony going to his room to get very, _very _drunk.

"We have to talk," Steve says, and Tony's disoriented enough to say,

"I thought you could only say that when in a relationship, not before."

Steve gives him a hard look, but he's not pulling away, he's not leaving, so Tony nips at his lips and draws equations on his lower back.

"Promise me," Steve says, and his face makes Tony sober up, "promise me, no more lies. I can't ..." he gets a line on his forehead that physically hurts Tony, "I can't do that again, I think."

And, oh God, this is embarrassing, later Tony will blame his lack of sleep and Steve for being ridiculous, but Tony almost chokes on emotion. "I promise," he gets out, and hugs Steve too tightly, reduced to whispering when his voice threatens to crack as he repeats those same words over and over.

He holds Steve, and Steve holds him, and the morning light keeps filling the kitchen until Tony stops making noise, and they stand there in silence.

Tony eventually leans back to kiss Steve again, hot and hard because he _can_, and when they reluctantly separate, he says, "You know what the others will say, right?"

"About damn time," Steve says, and Tony laughs.

* * *

A/N: Well, that was it, people! Thank you so much for reading. There might be a sequel in the works, to tie up one pretty big thread left hanging in this, but no promises.


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